Crystallization Mechanism and Charge Carrier Transport in MAPLE-Deposited Conjugated Polymer Thin Films

doi:10.1021/acsami.7b13609

Title: Crystallization Mechanism and Charge Carrier Transport in MAPLE-Deposited Conjugated Polymer Thin Films

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Abstract

Although spin casting and chemical surface reactions are the most common methods used for fabricating functional polymer films onto substrates, they are limited with regard to producing films of certain morphological characteristics on different wetting and nonwetting substrates. The matrix-assisted pulsed laser evaporation (MAPLE) technique offers advantages with regard to producing films of different morphologies on different types of substrates. Here, we provide a quantitative characterization, using X-ray diffraction and optical methods, to elucidate the additive growth mechanism of MAPLE-deposited poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) films on substrates that have undergone different surface treatments, enabling them to possess different wettabilities. We show that MAPLE-deposited films are composed of crystalline phases, wherein the overall P3HT aggregate size and crystallite coherence length increase with deposition time. A complete pole figure constructed from X-ray diffraction measurements reveals that in these MAPLE-deposited films, there exist two distinct crystallite populations: (i) highly oriented crystals that grow from the flat dielectric substrate and (ii) misoriented crystals that preferentially grow on top of the existing polymer layers. The growth of the highly oriented crystals is highly sensitive to the chemistry of the substrate, whereas the effect of substrate chemistry on misoriented crystal growth is weaker. The use of a self-assembledmore »« less

Authors:

; Strzalka, Joseph ^[2]; Jiang, Zhang ^[2]; Li, Huanghe ^[3]; Stein, Gila E. ^[4];

Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States); The Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, IL (United States)
Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)
Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States); National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

Publication Date:: Thu Nov 23 00:00:00 EST 2017

Research Org.:: Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:: National Science Foundation (NSF), Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences Division of Materials Research (MPS-DMR); Vietnam Education Foundation; University of Michigan; USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22)

OSTI Identifier:: 1415483

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-06CH11357

Resource Type:: Journal Article: Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:: ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces

Additional Journal Information:: Journal Volume: 9; Journal Issue: 51; Journal ID: ISSN 1944-8244

Publisher:: American Chemical Society (ACS)

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Subject:: 36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; MAPLE; X-Ray diffraction; conjugated polymers; crystallization; structure-transport relationship

Citation Formats


                    Dong, Ban Xuan, Strzalka, Joseph, Jiang, Zhang, Li, Huanghe, Stein, Gila E., and Green, Peter F. Crystallization Mechanism and Charge Carrier Transport in MAPLE-Deposited Conjugated Polymer Thin Films.  United States: N. p., 2017. 
        Web.  doi:10.1021/acsami.7b13609.

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                    Dong, Ban Xuan, Strzalka, Joseph, Jiang, Zhang, Li, Huanghe, Stein, Gila E., & Green, Peter F. Crystallization Mechanism and Charge Carrier Transport in MAPLE-Deposited Conjugated Polymer Thin Films.  United States.  doi:10.1021/acsami.7b13609.

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                    Dong, Ban Xuan, Strzalka, Joseph, Jiang, Zhang, Li, Huanghe, Stein, Gila E., and Green, Peter F. Thu .  
        "Crystallization Mechanism and Charge Carrier Transport in MAPLE-Deposited Conjugated Polymer Thin Films".  United States.  
        doi:10.1021/acsami.7b13609.

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@article{osti_1415483,

  title        = {Crystallization Mechanism and Charge Carrier Transport in MAPLE-Deposited Conjugated Polymer Thin Films},

  author       = {Dong, Ban Xuan and Strzalka, Joseph and Jiang, Zhang and Li, Huanghe and Stein, Gila E. and Green, Peter F.},

  abstractNote = {Although spin casting and chemical surface reactions are the most common methods used for fabricating functional polymer films onto substrates, they are limited with regard to producing films of certain morphological characteristics on different wetting and nonwetting substrates. The matrix-assisted pulsed laser evaporation (MAPLE) technique offers advantages with regard to producing films of different morphologies on different types of substrates. Here, we provide a quantitative characterization, using X-ray diffraction and optical methods, to elucidate the additive growth mechanism of MAPLE-deposited poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) films on substrates that have undergone different surface treatments, enabling them to possess different wettabilities. We show that MAPLE-deposited films are composed of crystalline phases, wherein the overall P3HT aggregate size and crystallite coherence length increase with deposition time. A complete pole figure constructed from X-ray diffraction measurements reveals that in these MAPLE-deposited films, there exist two distinct crystallite populations: (i) highly oriented crystals that grow from the flat dielectric substrate and (ii) misoriented crystals that preferentially grow on top of the existing polymer layers. The growth of the highly oriented crystals is highly sensitive to the chemistry of the substrate, whereas the effect of substrate chemistry on misoriented crystal growth is weaker. The use of a self-assembled monolayer to treat the substrate greatly enhances the population and crystallite coherence length at the buried interfaces, particularly during the early stage of deposition. Furthermore, the evolution of the in-plane carrier mobilities during the course of deposition is consistent with the development of highly oriented crystals at the buried interface, suggesting that this interface plays a key role toward determining carrier transport in organic thin-film transistors.},

  doi          = {10.1021/acsami.7b13609},

  journal      = {ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces},

  number       = 51,

  volume       = 9,

  place        = {United States},

  year         = {Thu Nov 23 00:00:00 EST 2017},

  month        = {Thu Nov 23 00:00:00 EST 2017}

}

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DOI: 10.1021/acsami.7b13609

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Molecular organization in MAPLE-deposited conjugated polymer thin films and the implications for carrier transport characteristics

Dong, Ban Xuan ; Li, Anton ; Strzalka, Joseph ; ... - Journal of Polymer Science. Part B, Polymer Physics

The morphological structure of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) thin films deposited by both Matrix Assisted Pulsed Laser Evaporation (MAPLE) and solution spin-casting methods are investigated. We found that the MAPLE samples possessed a higher degree of disorder, with random orientations of polymer crystallites along the side-chain stacking, π-π stacking, and conjugated backbone directions. Furthermore, the average molecular orientations and relative degrees of crystallinity of MAPLE-deposited polymer films are insensitive to the chemistries of the substrates onto which they were deposited; this is in stark contrast to the films prepared by the conventional spin-casting technique. In spite of the seemingly unfavorable molecular orientations andmore »« less
Cited by 5
DOI: 10.1002/polb.24237

Full Text Available
Molecular weight dependent structure and charge transport in MAPLE-deposited poly(3-hexylthiophene) thin films

Dong, Ban Xuan ; Smith, Mitchell ; Strzalka, Joseph ; ... - Journal of Polymer Science. Part B, Polymer Physics

In this work, poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) films prepared using the matrix-assisted pulsed laser evaporation (MAPLE) technique are shown to possess morphological structures that are dependent on molecular weight (MW). Specifically, the structures of low MW samples of MAPLE-deposited film are composed of crystallites/aggregates embedded within highly disordered environments, whereas those of high MW samples are composed of aggregated domains connected by long polymer chains. Additionally, the crystallite size along the side-chain (100) direction decreases, whereas the conjugation length increases with increasing molecular weight. This is qualitatively similar to the structure of spin-cast films, though the MAPLE-deposited films are more disordered. In-planemore »« less
DOI: 10.1002/polb.24588
Molecular weight dependent structure and charge transport in MAPLE-deposited poly(3-hexylthiophene) thin films

Dong, Ban Xuan ; Smith, Mitchell ; Strzalka, Joseph ; ... - Journal of Polymer Science. Part B, Polymer Physics

In this work, poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) films prepared using the matrix-assisted pulsed laser evaporation (MAPLE) technique are shown to possess morphological structures that are dependent on molecular weight (MW). Specifically, the structures of low MW samples of MAPLE-deposited film are composed of crystallites/aggregates embedded within highly disordered environments, whereas those of high MW samples are composed of aggregated domains connected by long polymer chains. Additionally, the crystallite size along the side-chain (100) direction decreases, whereas the conjugation length increases with increasing molecular weight. This is qualitatively similar to the structure of spin-cast films, though the MAPLE-deposited films are more disordered. In-planemore »« less
DOI: 10.1002/polb.24588
The Out-of-Plane Carrier Transport in Conjugated Polymer Thin Films: Role of Morphology

Yang, Hengxi ; Glynos, Emmanouil ; Huang, Bingyuan ; ... - J. Phys. Chem. C
DOI: 10.1021/jp402254r
Out-of-Plane Carrier Transport in Conjugated Polymer Thin Films: Role of Morphology

Yang, Hengxi ; Glynos, Emmanouil ; Huang, Bingyuan ; ... - Journal of Physical Chemistry. C
DOI: 10.1021/jp402254r